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culture

2016-06-26 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

The whole megillah

Enlace para español/Link here for Spanish

Dear reader,

A friend was recently telling us about his first time on a plane: “Después la azafata nos explicó lo del cinturón, las salidas de emergencia y todo el rollo.” (Then the flight attendant explained about the seat belts, the emergency exits, and everything.)

megillahThe last phrase, y todo el rollo, is a common idiom in Spanish to refer to the whole of something, with a sense of thoroughness and detail. Colloquial English has equivalents including “the whole nine yards,” “the whole shootin’ match” and others.

Spanish rollo means roll (e.g. of paper). How is it that it can also mean  mean something like “the whole nine yards,” with the sense of completeness or tedium?

Before books became commonplace, documents were written on parchment arranged in rolls. The most famous of these was the Torah, the Hebrew Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) that is the origin and ancestor of what we know today as the Bible.

Here’s where a colloquial English expression, slightly outdated but still common, comes in: “the whole Megillah.” The phrase, carrying the same sense and tone of todo el rollo, undoubtedly arose among Yiddish speakers (as were nearly all Ashkenazi Jews, that is, those of European origin, as distinct from the Sephardim of Spanish and North African origin) using the deeply-familiar Hebrew word. The expression in Yiddish: gantse megillah.

The cartoon character “Magilla Gorilla” derives its name from the colloquial use of this word.

Megillah offers a fascinating case of a word whose origin is sacred and which takes on a colloquial meaning that is profane (in the strict sense of worldly, non-religious) and humorous.

¡Buenas palabras! … Good words!

Pablo J. Davis

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", culture, Davis, expressions, Jewish, Jews, megillah, origin, Pablo, rollo, the whole megillah, todo el rollo, translation, Yiddish

2016-05-25 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

“Vote for me, I’m jes’ folks…”

Enlace para español/Link here for Spanish

Dear reader,

In this election season that already seems too long by half, we’ d be lucky to have a nickel for each time we’ve heard that word so dear to politicians’  hearts: the (near-untranslatable) “folks.”

Harrison log cabin

Claiming humble origins has been a favorite gesture of politicians in the US, almost since the birth of the Republic. An example: William Henry Harrison’s 1840 campaign, which made much use of log-cabin imagery.

The main sense of this colloquial word is “people.” But unlike the latter, “folks” connotes familiarity, warmth, even intimacy. “What can I bring you folks to drink?” is what a waiter might say trying to be friendly and casual instead of formal.

Politicians adore saying “folks” as it makes them sound humble and approachable—at least they think it does. “I want to thank the good folks of this state for sending me to Congress…”

Not only do they like to call the people, voters, and taxpayers “folks”—they love to apply it to themselves. “I’m just folks” (the deep-fried Southernism is: “jes’ folks”) is a verbal version of bluejeans and  lumberjack shirt. Could be the richer the candidate, the more they like saying “folks”—or feel they need to!

It can also be an informal term for “parents”: “I really miss my folks back home.” Not quite as common is the broader sense of “relatives” (old-fashioned “relations” or colloquial “kin” or “kinfolk”).

As “ordinary people,” “folks” can be translated by Spanish el pueblo. As a form of address, two possibilities are mi gente or amigos; a particularly Mexican variant would be mi raza or mi racita.

It’s not to be confused with the singular “folk,” meaning “the (ordinary) people” or “a people,” as with an ethnic group. (This is where the term “folklore” came from.)

The friendly aura of “folks” can also be weirdly out of place, as when Pres. G.W. Bush spoke of “the folks responsible for 9-11” or when Pres. Obama said, “We’ve tortured some folks.”

For a brilliant dissection of the way so many of our politicans try to be “just folks,” give a listen to the late, great country singer Cal Smith performing Sonny Throckmorton’s song, “I’m Just A Farmer”.

¡Buenas palabras! Good words!

Pablo

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "jes' folks", "just folks", campaign, culture, election, English, folks, humble, language, origins, politicians, politics, Spanish, translation

2016-04-21 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

“Cartonera” publishers: books for (and by!) everyone

Enlace para español/Link here for Spanish

Some stories are original. Some are classics in the public domain. Some brim with illustrations, some are for coloring. The variations are endless. But the covers are all made of recycled cardboard, with hand-painted titles and artwork. Each one’s a personal statement—a true original.

cartonera foto1Introducing the “Cartonera” phenomenon! This truly grassroots movement was born in Argentina during the early 2000’s economic crisis. Cartoneras are cooperative, neighborhood-based publishing ventures. They’ve spread throughout Latin America.

Now the movement has caught on here with the founding of “Memphis Cartonera” by Rhodes College students and local nonprofits. Dr. Elizabeth Pettinaroli, a Spanish literature and language professor at Rhodes who conducted field research on cartoneras in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay, has coordinated these efforts and led the mobilization of community partners.

It’s about rethinking art and literature’s place in our lives, fostering creativity, literacy, and sustainability.

This spring’s ongoing workshops: Centro Cultural (Cartonera comics), Cazateatro Bilingual Theater (Cartonera for adults/kids), Danza Azteca Quetzalcoatl (Spanish/Nahua poetry workshop), Refugee Empowerment Program (kids afterschool program), Latino Memphis/Abriendo Puertas (high-schoolers workshop), Caritas Village (Cartonera photo books for afterschool reading program).

A chance to learn more, talk with participants, and enjoy viewing some of the creations so far will be on Sat., Apr. 23 (6-9pm) at StoryBooth, 431 N. Cleveland in Crosstown Arts: the Memphis Cartonera opening party and exhibition. Free and open to the public. Attendees can paint, read, and make their own Cartonera book! The event continues Sun,. Apr. 24 (12-5pm).

Further info: Dr. Elizabeth Pettinaroli, 901-843-3828, pettinarolie@rhodes.edu. Sponsored by Rhodes College.

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Memphis Cartonera", books, cartonera, cultura, culture, humanidades, humanities, libros, Memphis, sustainable

2016-04-01 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

The first of April, fools and innocence

Enlace para español/Click here for Spanish

Dear reader,

It’s not a holiday, school kids don’t get the day off, stores don’t hold sales—but April First is widely loved.

April Fool’s Day is a day for telling false tales with a straight face—and, if the victim falls for it, crowing “April Fool!” aFree iPad visual!t your gullible listener. (French “Poisson d’Avril!” and Italian “Pesce d’aprile!¨ both mean “April fish”).

April Fool jokes can be in print too; many newspapers traditionally added a false front page over the real one, with absurd, fake news. A few papers still do it.

This US election campaign will be tough on April Fool pranksters—who can top the absurdity of the actual, real news?

In the Spanish-speaking world, though US influence has spread “El Día de los Tontos” somewhat, the real equivalent is Dec. 28, Día de los Santos Inocentes.

This light-hearted festival has a dreadful origin: the Biblical massacre of infants ordered by King Herod, who hoped the Baby Jesus would be among those slain. Christianity’s Feast of the Holy Innocents commemorates these martyrs.

From those tragic innocents to the innocent victims of the creative lies of Dec. 28 is quite a jump. But that’s how popular culture adapted and transformed that ancient religious commemoration.

When someone falls for a Dec. 28 gag, the traditional gloat is “Que la inocencia te valga” (May your innocence do you good).

The tall tale can be called a “joke” (Span. chiste, broma), “practical joke” or “prank” (broma pesada). If it’s elaborately constructed, uses print or other media, and is meant to snare a large number of people, it’s a “hoax.” In Spanish, Dec. 28 jokes in particular are often called inocentadas, playing off the day’s name.

On a serious note, did you hear about the Trump-Sanders “national unity ticket”? And that Apple is giving away free iPads to commemorate Steve Jobs’s birthday? ¡Que la inocencia te valga!

Buenas palabras/Good words!

Pablo

An earlier version of this essay originally appeared in the Mar. 25-31, 2015 edition of La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee) as number 174 in the weekly bilingual column, “Misterios y Engimas de la Traducción/Mysteries and Enigmas of Translation”.  Pablo Julián Davis, PhD, CT is an ATA (Aamerican Translators Association) Certified Translator, Engl>Span; a Tennessee State Courts Certified Interpreter, Engl<>Span; and an innovative trainer in the fields of translation, interpreting, and intercultural competency, with over 25 years experience. He holds the doctorate in Latin American History from The Johns Hopkins University, and is a Juris Doctor Candidate at the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, University of Memphis (May 2017).

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", April, April Fools Day, cultura, culture, Davis, Día de los Tontos, English, español, Fools, inglés, inocentadas, Pablo, Santos Inocentes, Spanish, Tontos, traductor, translator

2016-03-26 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

Lunary language and lore

Enlace para español/Link for Spanish

Dear reader,

This past week brought not only a full moon (Span. luna llena, or, in a graceful Latin form, plenilunio), but also a penumbral lunar eclipse.  And as far removed as most of us city folk are from the country and the spell the night sky used to cast on humanity, our companion orb has not lost the power to stun us with its beauty.

Human language testifies to the profound imprint that Earth’s satellite has made on human consciousness. We’ll look very briefly at some of that testimony, mainly in English and Spanish.

penumbral lunar eclipse march 2016The odd chance that Sun (Sol) and Moon (Luna) appear the same size in the earthly sky, has surely reinforced human cultures’ seeing them as a pair representing male/female, gold/silver, night/day.  The moon-female tie runs deep: the lunar phases find an echo in woman’s menstrual cycle.

The moon has its day: Engl. “Monday” (Ger. Montag, Dan. mandag), Span. lunes (Fr. lundi, It. lunedì).  It also gives us “month”; Span. mes is from Lat.  mensis, a root visible in words like “bi-mensual.”

Another link: moon and madness, yields  Engl. “lunatic” and Span. Lunático.  But  English informalizes it with “looney” and “looney tunes” (from the old cartoon series); “looney bin” is a mental hospital.

English also uses “moon” for “to languish sadly” (as one pining for a lost or unrequited love), which is a slightly archaic usage, and “to show one’s bared buttocks,” which isn’t.

Sp. lunar (loo-NAR) is also “birthmark,” once thought caused by the Moon’s influence, or “polka dot” on clothing. Spanish calls a landing on the Moon an alunizaje (by analogy to aterrizaje on Earth).

“Moonlight” (Sp. claro de luna, Fr. claire de lune) has a power over young lovers, long understood (and abetted) by poets and songwriters.

Samuel Johnson’s Sermon XII movingly uses the lovely, archaic word “sublunary” for “earthly”—urging his listeners “to bid farewell to sublunary vanities” and instead “with pure heart and steady faith to ‘fear God and keep his commandments.’”

¡Buenas palabras! Good words!

Pablo

An earlier version of this essay originally appeared in the Nov. 27-Dec. 3, 2015 edition of La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee) as number 158 in the weekly bilingual column, “Misterios y Engimas de la Traducción/Mysteries and Enigmas of Translation”.  Pablo Julián Davis, PhD, CT is an ATA (Aamerican Translators Association) Certified Translator, Engl>Span; a Tennessee State Courts Certified Interpreter, Engl<>Span; and an innovative trainer in the fields of translation, interpreting, and intercultural competency, with over 25 years experience. He holds the doctorate in Latin American History from The Johns Hopkins University, and is a Juris Doctor Candidate at the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, University of Memphis (May 2017).

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", certified, cultura, culture, Davis, English, inglés, Julián, luna, moon, Pablo, Spanish, traducción, traductor, translation

2015-02-28 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

Carry that weight

Enlace para español/Link for Spanish

Dear reader:

The languages we live in are very old, older than the earliest ancestors most of us can name.   Yet most of our words are older still. Remember: go back more than 500 years and you will not find an English (or a Spanish) language you can understand—but for many of the words we use, there is a lineage that goes back not a few hundred years, but thousands.

Mujer llevando canasta

What this woman is doing is the basis for one of the most powerful word roots in all of human language.

What is the first thing we ever do in the world? Actually, it’s less something we do than something done for us, the first thing done for us as separate beings, making all else possible: After nine months of giving us the very marrow of their bones,  our mothers “bear” us into the world: we are “born.” Old Engl. beran (to bear, bring, produce, endure) could trace its lineage back to Proto-Indo-European *bher-.

In ancient Greek (another Indo-European descendant), pherein is “to carry” or “to bear”—the root of “fer” in “transfer.” Carry a word over from one place (meaning) to another: meta + pherein yields “metaphor.”

It’s the same root shared by the fer element in words like ferriferous and auriferous, iron-bearing, gold-bearing.

Latin turned ph into p and we got the -port- in “transport” (to carry across), “import” (to bring in), to “comport” (carry) oneself—and so on, and on.

Spanish portar is to bear—portar arma is to be packing, to carry a weapon. An aircraft carrier is a portaaviones, a case for carrying papers a portafolios (portfolio), etc.

To bear or endure a burden, is to “support it”—soportar, in Spanish. To “suffer,” sufrir, is the same root.

The name of Christopher, the Christian saint and friend to travellers, comes from Church Greek khristophoros, literally Christ (Khristos) + bearing (phoros), as the saint is fused with medieval legend of a benevolent giant who helped travellers across rivers.

From this sublime meaning to such a humble object as a “wheelbarrow” (a “barrow” is for carrying, from that Old Engl. beran); the essential figure in poetry and language itself ( “metaphor”); and reaching back to the very moment of our “birth”: what unfathomable mystery and power in this word, in all its vast reach and its countless forms!

Good words!  ¡Buenas palabras!

Pablo J. Davis

A version of this essay originally appeared in the Nov. 20-26, 2015 edition of La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee) as number 157 in the weekly bilingual column, “Misterios y Engimas de la Traducción/Mysteries and Enigmas of Translation”.  Pablo Julián Davis, PhD, CT is an ATA (Aamerican Translators Association) Certified Translator, Engl>Span; a Tennessee State Courts Certified Interpreter, Engl<>Span; and an innovative trainer in the fields of translation, interpreting, and intercultural competency, with over 25 years experience. He holds the doctorate in Latin American History from The Johns Hopkins University, and is a Juris Doctor Candidate at the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, University of Memphis (May 2017).

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", bear, birth, born, carry, cultura, culture, etimología, etymology, metaphor, Pablo, traducción, transfer, translation

2015-02-21 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

Ladybug, ladybug, don’t fly away!

Enlace para español/Link for Spanish

Dear reader:

We’re used to thinking of cultural difference.  But some things in this world are so inherently beautiful that people everywhere, and always, seem to have loved them. To name a few: butterflies, roses, kites, rainbows.

Este diminuto insecto, ¿puede que sea amado por todas las culturas humanas?

Is it possible that this little insect is loved by all human cultures?

A small, flying insect, usually red and spotted—English “ladybug,” Spanish mariquita (little Mary), vaquita de San Antonio (St. Anthony’s little cow), and other names—also has a strong claim on membership in this select group.

The English and Spanish names are subtly linked: the “lady” in “ladybug” seems to refer to the Virgin Mary.

Some others: French la bête à bon Dieu (the good Lord’s bug), Russian bozha kapovka (God’s little cow), Dutch lieveheerbeestje (the dear Lord’s little animal), Yiddish moyshe rabbeynus ferdele (or) kiyele (Moses’s little horse, or little cow).

Why this affection so strong it often crosses into the sacred? The ladybug’s pretty colors are not unlike a butterfly’s; the spots remind us of cows.  Ladybugs readily rest or walk on a human hand.  And mariquita, a farmer’s friend, eats such agricultural pests as the aphid.

Some religious traditions, like Judaism, shrink from naming the Deity, so the prophet Moses is used instead. Spanish also steers clear of God in naming this insect, displacing to the Virgin or St. Anthony.

Maybe the ladybug is one of those utterly joyous things whose contemplation once moved Robert Louis Stevenson to write: The world is so full of a number of things/I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.

             ¡Buenas palabras/Good words!

Pablo

Pablo Julián Davis, PhD, CT is a Certified Translator (ATA/American Translators Association) eng>spa and a Certified Interpreter (Tennessee State Courts) eng<>spa, as well as a recognized trainer in the fields of translation, interpreting, and cultural competence. He has over 25 years experience in these fields. An earlier version of this column was written for the Jan. 24-30, 2015 edition of La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee) as part of his bilingual weekly column Mysteries & Enigmas of Translation/Misterios y Enigmas de la Traducción.  

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", cultura, culture, Davis, English, español, inglés, Interfluency, ladybug, mariquita, Memphis, Pablo, San Antonio, Spanish, traducción, traductor, translation, translator, vaquita, vaquita de San Antonio

2014-02-27 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

“Secret” languages or slangs

Estas dos personas ilustran el verbo "to razz" en ingles, una manera de abuchear o expresar desprecio. El origen de esa palabra está en la jerga rimada del Este de Londres, la llamada "rhyming slang".

These two individuals illustrate the verb “to razz,” which has its origins in Cockney rhyming slang and is indirectly connected with the word “fart.”

Enlace para español/Link here for Spanish

Dear reader,

The idea of a secret or encoded language is ancient, with obvious appeal to teenagers, colleagues in an occupation, prisoners—any group, really, that feels the need or desire to exclude outsiders from its communication.

In English, children have Pig Latin, where the first sound is moved to the end of the word, followed by ‘ay’: thus “ellohay” = hello. It’s similar to jeringoso, jerigonso o jerigonza (all derived from Span. jerga, Engl. “jargon”), which is a bit more complex: after each syllable comes ‘p’ and the vowel repeated, thus hopolapa = hola (hello), sipi = sí (yes), grapaciapas = gracias (thanks).

El vesre (the word revés, or reverse, itself reversed) long popular in Argentina and Uruguay inverts the order of syllables, though sometimes only approximately: yobaca = caballo (horse), jermu = mujer (woman), viorsi = servicio (bathroom), dolape = pelado (bald-headed man), lompa = pantalón (pants),  tidorpa = partido (game or match). When some action turns out to be useless, it’s common to hear vesre used in saying “fue al dope” (the phrase al pedo means useless, in vain; pedo itself means “fart” and thus the original sense of the phrase may well have been “as useless as a fart” or “like a fart in the wind”).

Victorian English back-slang was similar, though it inverted words letter-by-letter, rather than by syllable: “evig ti ot em” = give it to me. Apparently it was much used by shop clerks and street vendors to deceive customers.

Rhyming slang, a Cockney (East End of London) art, is great fun. Just a few examples: “slabs of meat” = feet, “trouble and strife” = wife. “Lee Marvin” = starvin’, “apples and pairs” = stairs, “bread and honey” = money. Often, further concealing the actual word intended, only the first part of the phrase is used, thus “I fell down the apples and broke me hand” = I fell down the stairs and broke my hand. So in rhyming slang, the rhyme is often implicit.

The verb to razz has its own amusing origin in rhyming slang. It means to jeer by using tongue and lips to imitate the sound of flatulence—and comes from “raspberry tart,” which is rhyming slang for “fart.” In the US, the same sound is also called a “Bronx cheer” (see illustration above).

Though none of these “languages” is hard to decode on paper, it’s not hard to imagine that when spoken at high speed they can be quite effective for secret communication. Quite apart from that use, these kinds of word play appeal to many users of language simply because they are fun and offer an arena for verbal creativity.

Good words! … ¡Buenas palabras!

Pablo

Copyright ©2014 by Pablo J. Davis. All rights reserved.

Pablo Julián Davis, PhD, CT,  is an ATA Certified Translator (Engl>Span) and a Supreme Court of Tennessee Certified Interpreter (Engl<>Span). An earlier version of this essay was originally published in the Mar. 2-8, 2014 edition of  La Prensa Latina, Memphis, Tennessee, as part of the weekly bilingual column “Mysteries & Enigmas of Translation/Misterios y Enigmas de la Traducción.”

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", Cockneys, cultura, culture, Davis, English, español, inglés, jerga, language, lenguaje, lunfardo, Pablo, rhyming, rimas, slang, Spanish, traducción, traductor, translation, translator

2013-11-01 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

Is Día de Muertos/Day of the Dead a ‘Mexican Halloween’?

by Pablo J. Davis

We’re in the brief interval between Halloween, widely celebrated in the US, and the festival known as ‘Día de los Muertos’ or ‘Día de Muertos’ and associated primarily with Mexico, though it’s observed in different ways throughout most of Latin America. It’s a good time to think about cultural similarities and differences.

La Calavera de la Catrina, the brilliant creation of Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada, has been the icon of El Día de Muertos for a century now.

Many in the US think of the ‘Día de Muertos’ (Day of the Dead) as the ‘Mexican Halloween’. But is it really so? Does the one ‘translate’ to the other? Just as the Spanish word ‘amigo’ (or ‘amiga’) and English ‘friend’ may be side-by-side in bilingual dictionaries, yet tend to mean quite different things to the people using them – and the same can be said for familia/family, fiesta/party, and countless other culturally significant word pairs – so Halloween and Día de los Muertos may share certain symbols, and the time of year, but are markedly different phenomena.

The (often unsuspected) differences between what many people think of as equivalent holidays is not quite what is meant by the term  ’false friends’.  The latter term refers to words that appear to the foreign speaker to mean one thing, due to their similarity with a familiar word in her language, but that in fact mean something different.  An English speaker, on reading in Spanish that ‘Gómez sufrió repetidas injurias a manos de Pérez’, may imagine that Pérez repeatedly assaulted Gómez, causing him physical injuries; when in fact, Spanish ‘injuria’ means insults, lies, slander, and other sorts of verbal attacks.  False friends can be tricky, but ultimately are fairly easily caught and corrected by speakers with good mastery of both languages.

Not so cultural phenomena.  There the differences are more subtle, may not even be captured by the bilingual dictionary.  Most English speakers, for instance, more readily use ‘friend’ where a Spanish speaker tends to use ‘compañero’ or ‘colega’, reserving ‘amigo’ or ‘amiga’ for a closer relationship. In other words, ‘amigo/amiga’ is a harder title to earn – we can think of it as perhaps socially more ’expensive’ – than is ‘friend’. No criticism of either culture meant here: it’s simply a cultural difference, an important one that can cause hurt and misunderstanding when not perceived by one side or the other.

What does all this mean for Halloween and the Día de los Muertos?  These two holidays, seemingly close equivalents if not downright interchangeable, map very differently onto the two cultures.  Halloween is largely about defying and even mocking death, about neutralizing its terrors by rendering them theatrical.  There is a kind of daring play involved, a dancing around the macabre.

In Mexican (and, more broadly, Latin American) culture, el Día de los Muertos is something else entirely.  One celebrates, remembers, honors, one’s deceased loved ones – parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles – it’s common to hear people speak of ‘mi muertito’ or ‘mi muertita’ (my beloved dead one) for a deceased father or grandmother, spouse or sibling. Ancient, pre-Columbian and pre-Christian traditions of ancestor worship and love were intertwined, over the colonial decades and centuries that unfolded after Contact and Conquest, with the Christian calendar and rites to create something new: scholars of religious history and culture refer to ‘syncretic’ religious practices.  Thus the celebration of the Día de los Muertos came to coincide with All Souls Day, or the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed, on the Christian calendar.

The ramifications of ritual involved in this festivity are elaborate and complex.  The baking of cakes in the form of skulls and skeletons, the making of skeletal figurines often fully dressed and adorned with hats and other accessories, the fashioning of altars bearing photographs of beloved dead and containing offerings to them, the creation of satiric verses, and a rich graphic tradition of death-related iconography (most famously in the work of José Guadalupe Posada, whose ‘La Catrina’ is above left) are just some of the flowerings of festive practice that the Día de los Muertos has given rise to.

Though there are some cultural-religious practices elsewhere in Latin America that have some commonalities with El Día de los Muertos – for instance, the cult of ‘San La Muerte’ (Saint Death) in the Guaraní cultural zone of northern Argentina, southern Brazil, and Paraguay, deeply rooted in the populace but rejected by the Catholic Church as pagan practice – there is nothing quite like the centrality of El Día de los Muertos in Mexican culture.

Still, wholeness and acceptance in the face of mortality, and the imperative of sustaining connection with loved ones no longer living – the heart of Mexico’s Día de los Muertos – form a thread that runs through much of Latin America’s cultural map. Argentina’s Atahualpa Yupanqui (1908-1992) expressed this idea as beautifully as anyone ever has. Half a century ago, in his memorable anthem, ‘Los hermanos’, the singer, guitarist, composer, and folklorist wrote:

Yo tengo tantos hermanos     I have so many brothers and sisters
que no los puedo contar.        that I can’t count them all.
En el valle, la montaña,          In the valleys, in the mountains,
en la pampa y en el mar.        On the pampas and at sea.

Cada cual con sus trabajos,    Each one with his work,
con sus sueños, cada cual.      with her dreams, each one.
Con la esperanza adelante,     With hope before them
con los recuerdos detrás.         And memories behind

. . .

Y así, seguimos andando                 And so we go on,
curtidos de soledad.                         Hardened by loneliness
Y en nosotros nuestros muertos    And inside us, we carry our dead
pa que nadie quede atrás.              So that no one is left behind

Yo tengo tantos hermanos              I have so many brothers and sisters
que no los puedo contar . . .            that I cannot count them all . . .

In the end, interpreting cultural phenomena across languages challenges us to a subtlety of understanding even beyond what translation usually demands.  Things that look the same can be fundamentally different.

Copyright ©2011-2013 by Pablo J. Davis. All Rights Reserved.
This essay originally appeared at http://interfluency.wordpress.com in October 2011. It is being republished this year with  an accompanying Spanish translation.

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", bilingual, certificado, certified, cross-cultural, cultura, culture, Davis, Día de los Muertos, Día de Muertos, English, español, Halloween, Hispanic, Hispano, inglés, Interfluency, interpretación, intérprete, interpreter, interpreting, Julián, Pablo, Pablo Julián Davis, Spanish, traducción, traductor, translation, translator

2013-09-27 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

Hispanic Heritage: Why Spanish Matters

La Mezquita, or Cathedral-Mosque of Córdoba, southern Spain, is considered one of the treasures of humanity and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its majestic geometry embodies the encounter of Africa, Europe, and Asia that unfolded in complex ways in medieval Spain and helped shape the modern Spanish language.

Spanish dominates foreign-language study in the US: 865,000 college students took it in 2009,  followed by French (216,000) and German (96,000). Spanish enrolls more than all other world languages combined. In K-12 public schools, the dominance is even greater: 2007-08 figures showed 6.4 million taking Spanish (72% of all foreign-language enrollment), French a very distant second at 1.3 million.

Why is the “language of Cervantes” so widely studied (if not always mastered)? Here are some of the more common reasons:

A large and growing population. The US’s Spanish-speaking population, over 40 million, surpasses all but a few Latin American countries. Many see Census numbers alone as proving the importance of Spanish and making it “the language to learn.” Not to mention geography: the US shares a border with the most populous Hispanic country in the world, and millions more Spanish speakers live in the Caribbean, not far from Florida’s shores.

Community service.  Idealistic young people in substantial numbers pursue Spanish to serve immigrant community needs such as literacy, health, legal aid, and education, or in missions of faith. In turn, those interactions often become an arena for “service learning” where classroom knowledge of the language is put to the enriching test of real-life experience.

It’s “easy”?  The perception of Spanish as easy to learn is widespread; college students typically see it as the shortcut to meeting language requirements.  It’s a half-truth: Spanish really is a marvel of grammatical and phonetic consistency, due in part to Nebrija’s 1492 Grammar (one of the earliest for a modern language) and the 1713 founding of the Royal Spanish Academy. But true mastery of the language is anything but easy to attain.

It’s “funny”? Fascination with “Spanglish”— incorporation of English words and patterns into immigrant speech—treats as odd the natural result of language contact between populations. In any case, this linguistic resource hardly amounts to a dialect, much less a separate language. Somewhat different is the popularity of “Faux Spanish”: “no problemo”, “perfectamundo”, “mucho macho”, or “el grande jefe” convey a playful, at times mocking, attitude towards Spanish and its speakers.

Laborers. Many North Americans associate Spanish with poorer, often undocumented, immigrants—an understandable perception based on current media and political obsessions, and perhaps personal experience.  In this view, the language is useful to communicate with, and manage, laborers. It’s not really a “serious” language, though: this was actually the message a prestigious private school in Virginia explicitly placed on its website in the recent past, with the boast that for reasons of academic rigor, they proudly offered only French as a foreign language. The same unexamined premise was shared by the judge in an Amarillo, Texas family court who infamously, in August 1995, ordered a Mexican-born immigrant mother to stop speaking in Spanish to her five-year-old daughter, as using that language constituted “child abuse” and would condemn the girl to a future “as a housemaid.” (Both the school and the judge did later about-faces in the light of avalanches of public criticism.)

A “quaint” culture.  It’s common to hear people express love for the culture, often in terms of salsa (cuisine) and salsa (music and dance).  Adjectives such as “colorful,” “quaint,” simple”, and “exotic” paint a Hispanic world of peasants, rural and village life, “traditions”. This view can unintentionally place Hispanic or Latino people in a primitive past, even outside of time. An associated perception sees Spanish as the language of places college students on Spring break and other tourists go to run wild, places—many of them—that the United States once conquered, occupied, or dominated. Indeed, this is the other side of the coin from language-of-manual-laborers. A long history of power relations has planted such deeply-rooted habits of thought.

Quite a mix of reasons (and it’s only a sampling)! Sincere interest in other cultures is there, as are a calling to service, faith, and love of justice. So, too, are simplistic romanticization, patronizing superiority, and power agendas.

Here are some other, crucial reasons why Spanish matters and why learning it is one of the best things you can do in the early 21st century:

A global language. Spanish now ranks second in the world in number of native speakers, with over 410 million (approximately 1 in 20 members of the human race), trailing only Mandarin Chinese. English, with over 360 million worldwide, is in third place, right behind (though when we add the number of people who speak English as a second language, it moves into second place). Portuguese, which I like to call Spanish’s “fraternal twin”—no living language is nearly so close a relation to English—has over 220 million native speakers, mostly in rising economic powerhouse Brazil; Spanish speakers can understand Portuguese to a considerable degree and have an automatic head-start in learning the language.

Economic power. The US’s 53 million Hispanics (1 in 6 people!) spend some $1.3 trillion annually; Spanish-speaking countries’ combined GDP, $3.4 trillion, equals industrial giant Germany; add sister nation Brazil, and at $5.9 trillion it matches Japan. There are countless markets to sell to, jobs to be done, texts to be translated, by people with significant mastery of the language (inseparable, in the end, from cultural understanding).

A world civilization.  Every language bears witness to a people’s experience and creativity.  For Spanish that includes ancient Iberian, Celtic, Roman, and Germanic legacies, as well as the unique Rom or ‘Gypsy’ presence (Spanish gitanos, a word derived from egiptanos and bearing witness to the passage of part of that wandering people into North Africa via Egypt); a near-millennium of Christian-Jewish-Muslim coexistence; the world’s first global empire; and, today, twenty multicultural societies of indigenous, African, European, and Asian heritage.  Just one example of the cultural richness that Spanish embodies: in societies viewed as overwhelmingly Christian, one says ¡Ojalá! (Arabic Inshallah) for “I hope so!”

The Knight of the Woeful Countenance. Likely the world’s best-known and loved work of fiction, Cervantes’s Don Quixote crowns a literature that includes the brilliant 17th-century Mexican poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz; the greatest of modern stylists, José Martí, who died fighting for Cuban independence; Chile’s beloved poet Pablo Neruda, Argentina’s Jorge Luis Borges with his metaphysical mysteries, and master storytellers of our lifetime like Colombia’s García Márquez, Peru’s Vargas Llosa, Mexico’s Carlos Fuentes, Chile’s Isabel Allende, Julia Alvarez of the Dominican Republic.

Recovering one’s own heritage.  Significant numbers of US-born (or raised) Hispanics are English-dominant, even monolingual (note that the Hispanic/Latino population, at 53 million, is larger than the Spanish-speaking figure of 40 million). For “heritage learners,” as the language-teaching profession calls those who grew up with significant home exposure to Spanish, learning it can be a powerful reclaiming of family and cultural legacy.

An outlook on life.  To master Spanish is to learn another way of being in the world, a peculiar combination of seriousness, humor, hierarchy, and dignity. The native English speaker learns to tuck away that ever-present, imperial pronoun “I” (the only one English capitalizes!), taking on a more sparingly-used yo: Spanish embodies a certain modesty.  One learns words for relationships and customs English can’t name: compadre or comadre if you’re their kid’s godparent, tocayo if you share the same name, sobremesa for staying at the table talking after a meal.  Saying Nos vemos mañana (See you tomorrow), one often adds si Dios quiere (God willing): a small linguistic bow to the Deity, or simply to life’s unknowns.

There are many valid reasons to learn Spanish; it’s fine as preparation for a Cancun vacation or to improve HR.  But a global economic force, a major world literature, and the quest for genuine intercultural fluency offer other motivations that can be mind-expanding, even life-changing.

Copyright ©2013 by Pablo J. Davis. All Rights Reserved.

Pablo J. Davis provides professionally-certified translation/interpreting services, and cultural coaching, through Interfluency.com. He has formal graduate training in Latin American History. A version of this article was published by The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) on Fri., Sep. 27, 2013.

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", bilingual, Certified Translator, culture, Davis, English, English-Spanish, español, foreign language, heritage, Hispanic, inglés, Latin America, Latino, Memphis, multicultural, multilingual, Pablo, Spain, Spanish, Spanish-English, translation, translator, USA

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